Many techniques have been developed in the art in order to compare files of data that are nominally the same. A brute force technique requires that each record in a first file be compared with every record in a corresponding second file. The time required to make this comparison is on the order of N.sup.2 where N is the number of records in the files.
One technique known in the art is that illustrated in the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin 06-77, pp 387-388, which uses the technique of multiple pointers to determine the minimum difference between files. Next points are compared with current points to decide Insert, Delete, or Replace action.